


The Consolation of Philosophy

by Callie_Quite_Contrary



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie_Quite_Contrary/pseuds/Callie_Quite_Contrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Adara in Yuletide 2004</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Consolation of Philosophy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Adara in Yuletide 2004

 

 

  
_All characters and settings are the property of Ellen Kushner. I do not have permission to use them and am making no profit from doing so._

__

This story is set some time before the beginning of Swordspoint _, a few weeks after Alec's arrival in Riverside._

He ambled past the stall with his robe clutched close across his chest, the basket bumping against his knee with little wicker creaks. The woman behind the piles of junk half-turned from her conversation, shot him a suspicious look. He returned it superciliously, swung away. Something clattered away from his toe, and heat crawled over his cheekbones; he slid a look down at tattered cushions, a chipped vase, a battered chest--  
  


Somewhere, far away, he heard laughter, light and excited. Boys' voices tangled heedlessly. Pages turned; a pen scratched on paper. A tentative, experimental kiss brushed the corner of his mouth...  
  


He sank to one knee, his robe floating around him in a dark wave, and reached out a hand. In the thin autumn light it was ghost-pale, the bones of his wrist stark against the worn cuff of his sleeve. It drifted over the chest, floated down; he felt worn leather under his fingertips, and dust, a familiar combination. He turned the book over, slowly. Another. It took a moment for his eyes to recognise the title, his memory to supply the contents. A small volume of Harrow's lyric poems. A cheap, paper-covered copy of _The Tragedie of Meliara the Lady of Tyre_ , the spine brittle under his fingertips. Cavendish's endless dreary sonnets. _Of Human Understanding_. A worn schoolboy geometry--  
  


`It can't be,' he said, startled, and turned the geometry back. But it was: _Of Human Understanding, the original_ \--the only--translation...  
  


It was smaller than he had thought it would be, bound in dull leather. His hand closed shakily on the thin spine, lifted the book out of the chest. His fingertips brushed the cover; the letters impressed on the leather stole his breath, and he slid into a tangle of limbs on the cobblestones, lifted his head, searched through towers of old boxes for the light for the junk-woman.  
  


`Where did you get this?' His voice was hoarse, unsteady over the noises of the market--a raucous shout, a parrot's screech, the sudden shrill yap of a dog. The junk-woman swung away from her neighbour, glared at him. His lips parted on a shaky breath. `It's been banned for twenty-seven years,' he said, `the University won't let a copy in the country--'  
  


She snorted. One heavy eyebrow flew up in a disbelieving arc. `That little thing?'  
  


His hands tightened on the book, drew it protectively against his chest. A sudden gust of breeze pushed his hair back off his face, belled the wide sleeves of his robe, turned his skin under coat and shirt clammy and cold. He shivered. `It's dangerous,' he said tightly. `It thinks about things in ways they don't like. Do you know what would happen to you if they found you selling it?'  
  


The junk-woman looked at him flatly for a moment. `They won't. This is _Riverside_ ,' she said as if speaking to an idiot; then her eyes flicked over his robe and the loose scatter of hair over his shoulders, and narrowed abruptly. She propped broad fists on a pile of old clothes, a broken-cornered box, and leaned forward. He rocked back warily. `You're a scholar--'  
  


Somewhere he heard paper tearing, great handfuls of it; it fluttered around him in contemptuous arcs, and a voice he ought to recognise ranted scornfully, unintelligibly in his ears. Plump arms clutched at his shoulders; a soft body, unfamiliar without the weight of the scholar's robe muffling it, shook with hopeless sobs...  
  


`No I'm not,' he said sharply, shook his head, but the junk-woman loomed closer, pushed out her jaw pugnaciously.  
  


`How much? Come on then, Master Scholar, there are others'll want it if you don't--'  
  


He shoved himself to his feet in a storm of black; his skin was slick with sweat, ice-cold, but he managed an incredulous look, a haughty lift of his chin that cut the woman off mid-word. `What on earth would I want with a banned book?' he said with utter contempt, and opened his hand. The book slipped from his fingertips, so slowly; he swung away before it even began to fall--  
  


The market reeled around him. He stumbled, flailed out a hand hopelessly--  
  


`There you are.' Something caught his wrist, steadied him. He looked up, blinked; it was a moment before he recognised the man before him, sturdy, hatless, brown hair rumpled into curls by the wind. Then his eyes blurred.  
  


`Richard--' He caught his breath, sneezed violently. Richard's hand slid from his wrist; he bunched his sleeve in his hand, blotted his nose carefully on the thick folds. The skin felt raw. `Did you come out in this horrible cold just to look for me?' His voice was thick. He sniffed.  
  


Richard shook his head. `It's not that cold. You didn't bring your knife.'  
  


He flapped an irritated hand, and his sleeve snapped in its wake like punctuation. `Why should I bring it when I can't use it?'  
  


`Alec...' There was a moment's pause. The breeze ruffled Richard's hair, pushed Alec's robe in clumsy billows around his body. Then Richard shrugged. A smooth turn of his wrist shifted his sword out of the way, and he crouched, balanced neatly on the balls of his feet, and tilted his head to peer into the basket. `What did you get?'  
  


Alec lifted a shoulder. `Oh--onions, candles, bread. Fish,' he added. The corner of Richard's mouth twitched, fought back to its usual easy line with an effort, and Alec's lips curled complacently. `Brandy--brandy is good for colds, Richard,' he sighed at Richard's sideways look. His voice roughened into a cough midway, set his eyes watering. `Martha took pity on mine and sold me something that's very nearly drinkable.' He sniffed again.  
  


Richard's smile flickered again, stayed this time. `I didn't know she kept anything that was...' He left the basket, propped his elbows on his knees for a moment; then he spotted the chest and leaned forward. Alec's skin crawled into goose-bumps. A trail of sweat traced his spine.  
  


Richard reached out a hand, extracted a book from the tangle, tilted it to peer uselessly at the cover, the spine. `What are these?'  
  


Alec closed his eyes briefly, closed his hands tight on the cuffs of his sleeves, and borrowed the junk-woman's tone. `They're books, Richard...'  
  


`I can see that,' said Richard patiently over his shoulder, still smiling. `What sort?'  
  


Alec's shoulders drew up under the heavy weight of cloth. `Poetry, history, plays. Philosophy.' Richard's brows lifted interestedly. Scraps of gilt glittered in the light, colourless, familiar, and Alec's nostrils flared scornfully. `That one was written by a scholar who lost his king's favour and was thrown into prison. He's visited there by the Lady Philosophy, who scolds him for being upset about it, and reminds him of the ineffable perfection of the universe and how trivial his misfortunes are by comparison with it to make him feel better.' But he could not muster the innocent tone that had always reduced Harry and George Stone to helpless giggles; it came out spitefully sharp instead. `It's drivel. Rhetoricians love it,' he snapped, and swung away. The wind tangled his sleeves around him, pushed his hair across his face. He shook it away; a sharp pain shot between his eyes, clenched his stomach sickly. `I'm cold. Let's go home, it's warm there.'  
  


There was a shift of fabric, a faint creak. He felt a solid shape close behind him. `It's not cold, Alec, you must have a fever.' Richard's hand slipped into the crook of his arm, tugged him back around. The thin light stole all the colour from his face; even his eyes looked like ghosts of themselves, searching Alec's face. He had never seen them so uncertain. `Did you find anything you wanted? I can get it for you--'  
  


Alec's stomach clenched. `No,' he said sharply, but Richard did not seem to hear.  
  


`You only have those three. Mathematics, Rhetoric and--I can never remember the other one.'  
  


`As--' He caught himself before he said it, muffled it in a cough and his sleeve. But the quiet stretched out between them, waiting for more than a shrill laugh and a bird's squawk to fill it. Alec straightened his back, bit the word out sharply. `Astronomy.'  
  


`That's it. And you don't read that one. You're a scholar, you should have books.'  
  


If he moved he would crush paper, a storm of scraps fallen about his feet. His scholarship; his work. He was shaking. His fists clenched, twisted handfuls of cloth; he heard a stitch tear, and from somewhere, there came a faint laugh, delicate, pitying: _But, my dear boy, you were only playing, after all..._  
  


`There's nothing I want here--' His voice cracked painfully. He shoved Richard's hand away. `Don't you ever listen? There's nothing I _want_ here!' For a moment he saw Richard's eyes widen; then, suddenly, his face was closed and calm, a pleasant stone mask. The breath shot out of Alec's lungs. He rocked back a step, stumbled away, his arms clamped hard over his ribs, his head bowed.  
  


Trying to find the Bridge, he got lost; he stumbled to a halt in the corner of an alleyway, in a patch of light between overhanging houses, and stood turning angrily on the spot for a moment, glaring at the houses through blurring eyes. His face was clammy. Under his robe and coat, his shirt clung to his skin. His hands shook in his sleeves. Slowly, his knees buckled; he slid down against the rough brick of a wall, leaned his head back against it, but the light touched no warmth to his skin.  
  


Across the road, a woman in a worn velvet gown eyed him professionally, drifted closer. He closed his eyes, pulled his robe tighter across his ribs. His nose was stuffed, his throat dry as sand. `I haven't got anything remotely worth stealing,' he called to her hoarsely, `but you're welcome to try.'  
  


A little silence. Somewhere overhead, a woman's voice shrilled, berating someone for some foolishness. In the cold half-dark behind his eyelids, he heard footsteps, soft and patient. The came closer, stopped. He flinched; damp heat swept over his face, and he turned his head away.  
  


Fabric rustled. Something creaked. `There you are,' said a familiar voice. He opened his eyes, turned his head slowly...  
  


Richard was crouched in front of him, elbows braced on his knees, the basket propped between his clasped hands.  
  


`Did you come looking for me?' he asked uncertainly.  
  


Richard's face was noncommittal. `You didn't have your knife,' he said, and Alec's forehead furrowed at the odd familiarity of their words. His eyes slid aside, briefly; behind Richard's back, the woman shook her head, mouthed _St Vier_ in disgust, and turned away.  
  


Alec's mouth twitched. In the fall of light, Richard's eyes were colourless, unfamiliar, fixed steadily on his face. `I got lost,' he said to them on an explanatory note. After a moment, Richard nodded.  
  


`You weren't paying attention. You have to pay attention, in Riverside.'  
  


He nodded, slowly, reached out a hand, touched one sturdy thumb-joint with a fingertip. `I haven't even touched the brandy yet,' he said with something that was almost a laugh, `it's just the fever,' and after another, shorter, moment Richard nodded again. The movement brought colour back into his eyes.  
  


Richard ducked his head, fumbled in the basket for a moment; Alec watched, frowning faintly, smiled a little as he came up with the little flask. Brown fingers eased the stopper out with an expert flick. Alec took it carefully, tipped back his head and took a small mouthful, but it burned his throat and roiled his stomach sickly. He made a face, and handed the flask back. `It's not even remotely drinkable, actually,' he said conversationally, and Richard, putting the flask away, flickered an amused look at him. The alley rang for a moment with delighted shrieks--children playing some game, somewhere. Overhead, the woman began to scold again.  
  


When Richard spoke at last, his voice was ordinary, curious, and Alec's breath vanished in a wave of relief.  
  


`You never told me what happened to that scholar.'  
  


His forehead creased blankly. `Which scholar?'  
  


`That one who was put in prison and wrote philosophy about it.'  
  


`Oh--' His breath shook out into an almost-laugh; his head eased back against the wall. `Him.' Far away, behind the scolding and a bellowed response, he heard a voice he knew, rolling out words portentously, like stones. _You have not been exiled from your city; you have driven yourself away, for no-one else could ever do it. For if you remember your city truly, you must remember that it is not ruled by many persons, but has one ruler and one king, and to be governed by his law is the only liberty. You must remember the oldest law of your city: that he who chooses to live there cannot be driven away. No-one who lives in that city need fear exile--but should he renounce his allegiance, he loses also his promise of safety--_  
  


He batted the old rhetorician aside with the back of his hand, and said airily, `The king had him executed, in the end.' Richard made a small sound, surprise or amusement, and Alec smiled sharply. `I've always been glad of that.'  
  


`You are bloodthirsty.' The sudden ease of Richard's voice tightened Alec's throat. He slid a look up from under his lashes; Richard's lips were quirked, just a little, and his eyes were warm with a light that curled Alec's stomach into a loose shivery knot, sent heat twining up his spine. His chest heaved on a shallow breath. He lifted a hand toward the taut skin around Richard's eyes, checked it, let it fall, slowly. Richard's eyes dropped to Alec's mouth, caught on just the place that Harry had once kissed; he felt it like a touch, and his lips parted--  
  


`Why?' said Richard.  
  


This time, Alec's smile was slow. `Because it stopped him writing any more stupid philosophy,' he said with satisfaction, and held out his hands, heard his own voice again, rich and arrogant in the light: `Let's go home. It'll be warm there.'  
  


`Yes,' said Richard, and took Alec's hands, and helped him to stand.  
  


FINIS.

The quote 'You have not been exiled from your city...' is adapted from _The Consolation of Philosophy_ , by Boethius, trans. Richard Green (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963).

 

 

 


End file.
